Confirmed with Link: Kyle Dubas Not Returning

[Leaf Fans]

A pretty good job in what aspect?

He became the GM of a young team who was making the playoffs every season and traded away 5 1st round picks for one first round victory. I think any GM in the league could have the same success as he did, if not more, in the same circumstances.

To me, that's an objectively horrible job.

He revamped the entire organization and built a good team- maybe any GM could have done it, but Dubas was the one who did it. The major issue is playoff successes which has eluded Leaf GMs for years.

 

[SmoggyTwinkles]

In my opinion, it was a negotiating tactic to get what he wanted financially. He was trying to raise his demand by creating the illusion of uncertainty. He knew that the team wanted him back at that point, and was trying to leverage it into.. well, I got to see if my family wants millions of dollars first.

Since he knew Shanahan wanted him back, he was trying to play the media into speculating about Dubas' future, including with other teams or roles, and trying to get Shanahan to offer the raise he wanted to 'sway him' to return despite his lack of success as a GM in the NHL.

As soon as Shanahan heard the words "man this has been hard I'm not sure I want to be here"

He was fired.

Dubas' agent came back with a bigger number. Shanny pointed at the door and that's how this went down IMO.

 

[TMLBlueandWhite]

This is all Tanenbaum's fault.

The managerial incompetence displayed by his multi-billion dollar NHL franchise is shocking. How anyone who owns a sports team could watch this all unfold without intervening is beyond me. It's one thing to be incompetent at your job.

It's another when your boss is enabling it.

If Shanahan came right out and said "I did it because the team underachieved again" nobody would have said a word. Instead we got all this hogwash about Dubas hemming and hawing over a new contract. Pretty much translates into Shanahan making a knee-jerk decision purely out of spite.

The result has been a media firestorm.

I wonder if Tanenbaum has ever asked Shanahan to explain why he thought replacing a HHOF general manager with multiple Stanley Cups to his name with a young upstart with no experience was a good idea to begin with anyway.

You can spin and defend his record all you want. I'll never understand why anyone would though. In the end, it all boils down to what he's accomplished during his tenure here.

Which isn't much.

I don't know if Tanenbaum actually thinks Shanahan is doing a good job. Or if he simply doesn't want to admit he's botched the entire rebuild. One thing I do know, is that Shanahan isn't the main attraction, the team is.

And either the team starts to perform better or he gets replaced .

 

[SmoggyTwinkles]

This is all Tanenbaum's fault.

The managerial incompetence displayed by his multi-billion dollar NHL franchise is shocking. How anyone who owns a sports team could watch this all unfold without intervening is beyond me. It's one thing to be incompetent at your job.

It's another when your boss is enabling it.

If Shanahan came right out and said "I did it because the team underachieved again" nobody would have said a word. Instead we got all this hogwash about Dubas hemming and hawing over a new contract. Pretty much translates into Shanahan making a knee-jerk decision purely out of spite.

The result has been a media firestorm.

I wonder if Tanenbaum has ever asked Shanahan to explain why he thought replacing a HHOF general manager with multiple Stanley Cups to his name with a young upstart with no experience was a good idea to begin with anyway.

You can spin and defend his record all you want. I'll never understand why anyone would though. In the end, it all boils down to what he's accomplished during his tenure here.

Which isn't much.

I don't know if Tanenbaum actually thinks Shanahan is doing a good job. Or if he simply doesn't want to admit he's botched the entire rebuild. One thing I do know, is that Shanahan isn't the main attraction, the team is.

And either the team starts to perform better or he gets replaced .

If you update your avatar and get out of the Ballard era, I might actually read your post.

You sound like.......not sure. Bill something.....

 

[centipede2233]

Kyper on todays podcast mention treliving is the heavy favourite atm. I would be prepared for a treliving hire tbh. I’m not a big fan of his, but he is a straight shooter and he isn’t afraid to make trades and fire coaches, so that’s a start lol

 

[Divine]

Dreger reported that the offer to Dubas was among the highest paid GM's in the NHL.

Dubas supposedly believed trading five 1st round picks for one series win in 5 years was worth more and countered. It backfired, Shanahan had the confidence to walk away which Dubas probably didn't anticipate.

Dreger also speculating that it's unlikely that Dubas gets what he wanted in Toronto anywhere else in the NHL if it wasn't going to be in Toronto.

 

[KMNRB]

I have a new (speculative) office-politics kind of theory of why Dubas raised the family issues and vowed his allegiance to the Maple Leafs during his press conference last week.

We all know, by now, that he set his objective on bypassing Shanahan to gain direct access to the board.

We also know that he has the Pens job all along, that he is Plan A for the Pens. And that's a job with all the autonomy of decision-making.

So why not threaten your boss with the counter-offer (money + power) by leveraging on the option for leaving for the Pens?

Here is my speculation.

He didn't use the Pens job as his leverage because he knows Shanahan won't budge. Playing hardball doesn't work with Shanahan. If so, try a softer scheme. Try showing your weaknesses and the psychological pressure. Perhaps Shanahan will yield to the suggestion to revamp the "reporting workflow" to lessen the pressure. Then the subtle step upward the corporate ladder will eventually lead to him replacing Shanahan when Shanahan's contract expires in two years, if not sooner.

In other words, the show of brokenness and weakness, and the vow of allegiance to the Maple Leafs, were not targeted at the fans (don't think he cares how we think today when he shows up in Pittsburgh), but for trying to take advantage of any compassion Shanahan might have felt for him.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

Wonder how the wife feels about leaving Toronto for Pittsburgh?

It makes me wonder if the Dubas family will ultimately accept the job.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

And bankrupted two businesses if I recall correctly.

If Dubas doesn’t get the job with the Pens, maybe he should pull a Kostanza and just walk back right into the Leaf offices and claim the last week was all a big joke and of course he’s staying on as GM.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

It's concerning that the reason why they let him go was because he tried a power move not because he failed to assess his coaches limitations. We were going to go back into the next season with the same gang and if the rumors are true Shanny is now promising the core four they will be back next season. I forget who said it, I think it was Belichick that the biggest two sins of a GM or Coach is falling in love with "your guy" and not being able to acknowledge your mistakes and correcting them quickly. IMO Shanny and Dubas are guilty of both sins.

I think the real story here is Kyle is addicted to himself and to power. So he surrounds himself with lots of “yes” people who feed his little ego and agree with everything he says. So obviously Shanahan having more power than him and questioning his decisions was going to be an issue for him.

Seems like classic narcissist behaviour to me.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

Oh wow not sure if am late to the party but lookie lookie

Wait until Kyle finds out that Crosby has some say and influence within the organization. That revelation will no doubt require “The Dubas Family” to demand a meeting to “streamline the process”.

 

[Racer88]

Like when the Raptors GM made it public he would definitely not trade his star player, then traded him days later.

These guys all break their word when it suits them to do so.

Agreed. I don’t blame him for looking elsewhere. It’s just to bad more of these guys don’t think before they speak.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

As someone who had initially wanted Dubas to come back, my opinion has since soured about him after Shanahan's comments.

This is a guy who had no NHL experience and was hired to the most lucrative NHL team. He was quickly fast tracked to the GM, and was offered resources he would not get in other teams. He was allowed to dump salaries of bad contracts he signed and given the resources to do so. There's not too many NHL teams that would allow a GM to dump a bad contract the same year it was signed and eat millions in salary like the Leafs allowed Dubas, a competitive advantage.

In return, he mortgaged Toronto's future for 1 series win in 5 years. We barely have any draft picks this year, and one first round pick until 2026.

Despite all that, Shanahan was willing to give him the opportunity to grow with the team he lead despite having no success on a team offering him competitive advantages. He takes that opportunity and runs to the media and talks about how hard the job is on his family and tries to leverage his lack of success to a higher pay, whereas by any objective metric he should have been fired.

Dubas obviously doesn't believe in the team he built or he would have wanted to see it through. No other GM's in the league have been given the opportunity, chances and talent he was given from the start and done nothing with it and had the opportunity to continue. He took the first round victory, his only in 5 seasons, after trading the 2023 1st and 2025's 1st in additional to all the 1sts he traded away previously (Marleau, Mrazek, Foligno, etc.) as an opportunity to ask for a raise and be melodramatic on the difficulties of the job?

If what Shanahan said was the case, I 100% support his decision to fire Dubas. Let him try to verbally persuade another team he's the smartest guy in the room because his results do not.

He comes across as an entitled narcissist, the same vibe that Dallas Eakins and Mike Babcock have.

Yep.

You pretty much nailed it.

The most ironic part to me is that Dubas’s main gripe was that he didn’t have full autonomy, so he wanted the process streamlined so that organizational decisions were made faster.

So the guy who wants the process streamlined to make decisions faster, couldn’t make a decision on his own future for months. The decision to sign a contract extension was solely his. And it was reportedly presented to his agent in March and by mid May he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do?

What an incompetent joke.

 

[TMLBlueandWhite]

If you update your avatar and get out of the Ballard era, I might actually read your post.

You sound like.......not sure. Bill something.....

Do I sound upset?
Do I sound frustrated?
Maybe even a little pissed off?

Any fan of the team should be right now.

I'm not sure what you have against my avatar. And I'm sorry you don't like my posts. But the fact of the matter is that unless you are Tanenbaum using a burner account, I don't post for you.

I post for ML$E.

 

[Zero1]

Dreger reported that the offer to Dubas was among the highest paid GM's in the NHL.

Dubas supposedly believed trading five 1st round picks for one series win in 5 years was worth more and countered. It backfired, Shanahan had the confidence to walk away which Dubas probably didn't anticipate.

Dreger also speculating that it's unlikely that Dubas gets what he wanted in Toronto anywhere else in the NHL if it wasn't going to be in Toronto.

Around the league in the NBA the Raptors/MLSE are known for paying their guys really well. I’m sure that’s true on the Leafs side too.

I don’t see any of the other openings paying him what he asked the Leafs which is why I don’t think this was a money thing.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

but the dubas referendum has always been about more than just a GM, but rather has been enmeshed in a broader culture war between younger, more educated, urban fans and older, less educated, rural fans.

the truck nuts crowd has always passionately hated dubas, and it hasn't always been because of job performance.

In other words…

The referendum on Dubas has always been between people who haven’t played hockey versus people who actually have?

Perhaps the DubAnons think we should replace Kyle with a mainframe computer running the latest version of A.I.?

 

[Divine]

Around the league in the NBA the Raptors/MLSE are known for paying their guys really well. I’m sure that’s true on the Leafs side too.

I don’t see any of the other openings paying him what he asked the Leafs which is why I don’t think this was a money thing.

I don’t think he anticipated the Leafs letting him walk, which is why I think it was a money thing.

Shanahan basically told him he wants him back months ago and he was using every trick in the book for a raise when you don’t have results. It’s hard on my family, etc. in order for Shanahan to sweeten the pot.

MLSE already offered him among the highest paid GM’s in the league despite no success. Dubas didn’t realize Shanahan had the confidence to let him walk and overplayed his hand.

Now, he won’t be making as much as Toronto offered him and it’s going to be just as stressful on his family. Maybe he should go back to the Soo for 50K a year for a low stress job, I wonder how much his family will want that.

 

[Trapper]

I mean, sociopath is a strong word. I think that's a level that doesn't exist.

Context? Well, context. Even if we presupposition, and I don't hold it to be true, that Dubas was only out for himself, to the detriment of the team, I think that's a huge jump, but which would seem to be the claim, he is still no where close to causing a level of damage that we have previously experienced.

Not to say, at all, that looking to move on is not right. It is. Particularly if you didn't like him. Sure. My point is, the sex cabal in the pizza chamber level... hatred.. it's over the top.


Disagreeing is fine good sir. And so it shall be.

Fortunately he heals real quick from the trauma on himself and his family and can be out interviewing with Pittsburgh the next week. Is there a pill for that or something?

 

[MCR74]

I won't miss him. Just look at the shape the team is in now.

Whoever comes in as GM will have his work cut out, that's for damn sure.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

I don’t think he anticipated the Leafs letting him walk, which is why I think it was a money thing.

Shanahan basically told him he wants him back months ago and he was using every trick in the book for a raise when you don’t have results. It’s hard on my family, etc. in order for Shanahan to sweeten the pot.

MLSE already offered him among the highest paid GM’s in the league despite no success. Dubas didn’t realize Shanahan had the confidence to let him walk and overplayed his hand.

Now, he won’t be making as much as Toronto offered him and it’s going to be just as stressful on his family. Maybe he should go back to the Soo for 50K a year for a low stress job, I wonder how much his family will want that.

Well in the Soo he had to call Doug MacLean for advice because he was worried he was about to get fired by the owner of the team.

I’m surprised Kyle didn’t go to the league and ask to report to them directly instead.

 

[57 Years No Cup]

Is there really some world where Shanny hasn't spoken to his core players after firing the GM, and probably telling them stay cool like Fonzy, everything is ok? It doesn't seem a reach here my friend. Take a step back from the Dubas was fired and I was always right train and think about the statement here.

Pure conjecture.

 

[DarkKnight]

More than the money ask, I really think it was this idea that he wanted to go to the Board with Shanny to present trades, contracts. I think when the dust settles this end around was when Shanny said get lost. He gave Dubas the best opportunities at every stage and in the end Dubas’ own hubris bit him in the ass.

 

[hockeywiz542]

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It was almost five years ago that Kyle Dubas pulled off what was supposed to be his signature move in Toronto.

The now-exiled Maple Leafs general manager was in his new role for less than two months when he helped convince New York Islanders captain John Tavares to leave the only NHL franchise he knew and come home. Just 32 years of age at the time, Dubas desperately wanted to make a splash as a new GM and came up with a public relations dream — at least on the surface — complete with photo of a young Tavares in his Maple Leafs pyjamas.

Dubas brought back the star Leafs Nation wanted. All these years later, it’s worth revisiting whether it was the one they needed.

I remember working on the free-agent frenzy desk at Sportsnet on July 1 in 2018 and immediately questioning what this move would mean for re-signing Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. The budding superstars were destined to be the NHL’s next dynamic duo, like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane or Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. But for some reason I got the sense that the chemistry of this team was thrown off.

Sports analytics departments continue to grow as the method becomes one of the primary ways management groups build their teams. Yet it’s still hard for me to believe some teams will lean so heavily on mathematical calculations and statistics when determining whether they have a championship-calibre group that’s ready to fight for the Stanley Cup.

Far too many aspects of success in sports can now be determined by a simple algorithm. But do the mathematicians developing these stats know what it takes to look each other in the eye in the dressing room and demand more on the ice? Call me old-fashioned but that’s real chemistry, and it cannot be undersold or taken for granted.

The Leafs never quite nailed that part this season, with coach Sheldon Keefe unable to find the right mix for his lines and defence pairings. Individually, the Leafs have great talent, but somehow it never meshed. In Keefe’s defence, the Leafs’ chemistry problems started long before he was behind the bench.

It always seemed to me that Tavares’s arrival altered the dynamics of the Leafs’ two young superstars. One of Dubas’s biggest mistakes was bringing in Tavares as a mentor to Matthews and Marner before having the two under contract and putting them in the right pecking order.

It must have been awkward for a young star player like Matthews to view Tavares as the leader when he’s lower on the pay scale, even if it is only $600,000 (U.S.). And, to be fair, Tavares has never tried to be the type of leader he’s not. Going back to his Islanders days, Tavares was never considered to be someone who would take a hands-on approach. His greatest strength as a captain has always been to set an example with his work ethic and ability to produce points. No one can question that in his five years in Toronto, either.

It’s also clear the seven-year, $77-million deal he signed was the major contributor to the demise of any cap space the Leafs had for a balanced roster.

In hindsight, the only chance the signing could have worked properly was if Dubas had stood firmly that no one was to be paid more than the future captain’s $11 million per year. But the Matthews camp had their way with the Leafs, and the dominoes began to fall.

Dubas caved to Matthews’ lofty, unprecedented demands of an $11.6-million average annual value on a five-year deal. Marner followed suit, pushing for more and receiving a $10.9-million AAV. In comparison Nylander, who was signed before all the craziness, is a bargain at $6.9 million a season. One can only imagine the contract expectations from Matthews and Nylander when they’re able to negotiate extensions on July 1.

The question is how do president Brendan Shanahan and his incoming GM fix this?

They might have to start by revisiting the two years remaining on Tavares’s deal. If this is where all the issues started, it may be the place to begin fixing them. It could get ugly quickly for the new GM, who might have to ask the 14-year veteran — who holds a no-move clause and told reporters after his team’s second-round playoff exit to the Florida Panthers that “my intention is to be here” — to think about being somewhere else.

With the ability to have multiple teams pick up portions of his contract, it is possible to increase the Leafs’ cap space by moving a good portion of the $22 million owed to the 32-year-old over the next two seasons. With his point-a-game production, he could clearly help a dozen desperate teams make the playoffs. The freedom of losing that contract would also allow the new GM to reset the pecking order in the dressing room with Matthews, Marner and Nylander at the top.

Instincts are needed in the Toronto head office this off-season, not analytics. There will be no mention of team chemistry in the stats but it’s the secret sauce when it comes to playoff success. Any player who has hoisted the Cup will tell you that.

 

[57 Years No Cup]

Any one of us would have signed Tavares at that time. I can't fault Dubas for that. What I can fault him for is caving in to Matthews' and Marner's contract demands and overpaying them based on potential. Never pay for potential. Award results.

 

[SmoggyTwinkles]

Do I sound upset?
Do I sound frustrated?
Maybe even a little pissed off?

Any fan of the team should be right now.

I'm not sure what you have against my avatar. And I'm sorry you don't like my posts. But the fact of the matter is that unless you are Tanenbaum using a burner account, I don't post for you.

I post for ML$E.

I meant no harm I just hate seeing the Ballard era Leafs crest. I think I meant that you sound like Bill Waters or something, that is probably not fair.

But also that everything is probably more fine than we think as Leafs fans. There is no reason to freak out over Dubas "leaving". Dude got his ass fired trying to play hardball with Shanny.

He got called out on being a chicken shit liar. And so good riddance.